What is the highest note you can sing? How about the lowest? Do you think males and females can reach the same notes? How about children and adults? Find out the answers to all these questions in this "note"-worthy science fair project!
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Music_p027

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Time Required

Short (2-5 days)

Prerequisites

To do this science fair project, you will need to know which key is Middle C on your piano or keyboard, have a friend or family member show you which key is Middle C, or use a piano that has Middle C labeled. See the Experimental Procedure tab for more details.

Material Availability

This science fair project requires access to a piano, keyboard, or virtual piano (available online). See the Materials tab for details.

In this project, you'll investigate the physics of standing waves on guitar strings. You'll learn about the different modes (i.e., patterns) of vibration that can be produced on a string, and you'll figure out how to produce the various modes by lightly touching the string at just the right place while you pick the string. This technique is called playing harmonics on the string. By the way, we chose a guitar for this project, but you can do the experiments using any stringed instrument, with…
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Music_p009

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Time Required

Very Short (≤ 1 day)

Prerequisites

To do this project, you'll need a guitar (or other stringed instrument). You'll need to know enough about playing the instrument to produce clear harmonics by picking (or plucking) the string while lightly touching it in just the right place.

Do you enjoy singing contests like American Idol? Well, male songbirds have their own version of a singing competition that has been going on for thousands of years, and classical musical composers have been taking notes! In this music science fair project, you'll investigate the different instruments composers have used to imitate or create impressions of bird songs and bird calls.
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The American holiday of Thanksgiving is a favorite of many. Friends and family getting together, a big feast, fancy china and glassware on the table. Who can resist the temptation to make the wine glasses sing? Find out more about how this works with this project!
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Have you ever blown across a bottle's top and made a pleasant, resonant sound? If so, have you wondered how that note is made exactly? A bottle is actually what is called a closed-end air column. Clarinets and some organ pipes are examples of musical instruments of this type. In this science project, you will use bottles to investigate how the length of a closed-end air column affects the pitch of the note that it makes. All you need are some bottles, water, a ruler, and a chromatic tuner.
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This is a great project for a musician who is interested in the physics of stringed instruments. If you've ever played an acoustic guitar, you may have noticed that picking a single string can make one or more of the other (unpicked) strings vibrate. When this happens, it's called sympathetic vibration. What intervals lead to the strongest sympathetic vibrations? Find out for yourself with this project.
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Music_p011

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Time Required

Very Short (≤ 1 day)

Prerequisites

To do this project, you will need a properly tuned acoustic guitar (or other acoustic stringed instrument). You'll need to know enough about playing the instrument to produce clear, ringing tones by picking (or plucking) the string while changing its effective length by fretting (or fingering) it.

This is a rockin' project for guitarists with an interest in the physics behind the music. Have you ever wondered why the pitch of the note changes when you fret the string? You can find out for yourself with this project on the fundamental physics of stringed instruments.
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Music_p010

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Time Required

Very Short (≤ 1 day)

Prerequisites

To do this project, you will need a guitar (or other stringed instrument). You'll need to know enough about playing the instrument to produce clear, ringing tones by picking (or plucking) the string while changing its effective length by fretting (or fingering) it.

Do violin students have better relative pitch than piano students? Since the violin requires the player to choose the correct location to stop the string in order to sound the proper note, you might think that violin players would, as a result of practice, have better ear training than piano students. On the other hand, you could argue the opposite viewpoint, since piano students would have the benefit of hearing correct intervals (assuming that the piano is in tune). Which hypothesis do you…
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The renowned pianist Vladimir Horowitz once said, "The most important thing is to transform the piano from a percussive instrument into a singing instrument." Check out this project to learn about sympathetic vibrations, one way to make piano strings sing.
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Music_p012

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Time Required

Very Short (≤ 1 day)

Prerequisites

To do this project, you'll need a piano which is in tune. You'll also need to know enough about the piano to find notes by their letter names.

Have you ever seen a great movie and then rushed out and bought its soundtrack? Did the soundtrack bring back the thrill of an action chase? Or the sadness one of the movie's characters felt? Music is a big part of the movie experience. It intensifies the emotions in scenes so that you do not just jump when that hairy spider comes around the corner, you scream! In this music science fair project, you will find out if happy, sad, scary, and action scenes in movies use music with the same…
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You can find this page online at: http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/search.shtml?v=solt&pi=Music_p015

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